Legends and Plagues - Pindicator Plays the Newest CK3 DLC

[Mjmd]

Lets simplify this story. You became king because you hung some poachers.

[pindicator]

And they took it out on the previous king. Basically, yeah.

[sunrise089]

I always enjoy reading these updates

.

[pindicator]

Yep! It's been a busy week, but I'm currently writing it up now.

[Krill]

Woo, thanks Pin.

[pindicator]

So I thought "not much has happened over the 10 years in-game I've played, surely I can cover this all in one update.  Nope - instead I get too verbose, and find the stories that happened in the game, and I think I only got through about two-and-a-half years.  Which means I need to do another update later today/tomorrow!


King Sahak of Georgia, Part Three: What Fortune Brings

My first act as King is to pardon my kinsman, Gagik Arranshahik.




His wife, Houri, died during the war to win the throne of Georgia.  And if you're wondering why he was Excommunicated, I think the fact that the Catholicos had a giant fetish and was sleeping with his wife had a lot to do with it.  I don't think this move will upset the head of our religion - the AI isn't quite that sophisticated - and anyway, I don't think even a real-life Catholicos Tigran would put that much thought towards the windower of his former lover.

Houri did have two children, and if there's any question of their true lineage it hasn't arisen in the game.  For now they are Arranshahik kinsmen just as their father.

With that official act done, let's see our Royal Court:




Sigh.  Well, if that's the state of things I might as well embrace it.  I take the last option and side with my gassy count.  This tanks my Court Grandeur all the way to rock bottom (since we started low anyway), but it relieves stress and Sahak needs the stress relief right now.

Still, we should probably work to improve things around here:




Quick primer on the Royal Court and Court Grandeur (link to the wiki with vastly more detail).  Court Grandeur reflects how famed my court is throughout the world.  As a king I'm expected to keep things up to a certain level, and that's reflected in my Court Grandeur stat.  Certain events can let me affect it, holding court more often can give me more grandeur, and paying more for my court's amenities can give me more as well as set a baseline for the stat which it will tick towards each month.  Finally, my vassals all have an expectation of what my Court Grandeur should be, which is set to 1 for every 40 counties I control.  Which means 1 for me.  And I'm still below that, thanks to my belching bishop.

Setting my Court Amenities to be the 2nd in everything will cost me 0.8 gold/month, and will set my Court Grandeur baseline to 17.  Honestly a bit of overkill, but I haven't ever dug into the amenities situation before.  Maybe I'll have to cut some things if money ever gets tight later on.  There are other bonuses these grant besides grandeur, the wiki link has more detail.




We also reach 250 Renown and earn our first Dynastic Legacy.  I thought about trying one of the new lines out - boosting my Legitimacy or aiming for legends with the Heroic Bloodline - but instead I decide to go down the Law branch first and take Mostly Fair.  Popular Opinion in all counties is +5 and the cost of Hunt and Feast activities is reduced by 30%.

We also have some succession issues to sort out.  My two new vassals don't have any heirs and King Smbat of Hayastan would inherit their lands if they were to die now.  Prince Arshak is still underage, but Prince Grigor has no excuse.  He asks to marry my oldest daughter and I accept.




Yes, this is a decent sized bargaining chip to use up, but also means I don't have to worry about him revolting or joining any factions against me.

With the internal realm situation stabilized, I look outside the realm for my next move.




Prince Grigor has claims on the county of Tao, as the father of Emir Abu-Hafs ibn Marwan of Marwanid Emirate had taken the county from him earlier.  The current emir is weak (less than 500 men) and our mercs only ave 9 months left, so we are quickly back to war to retake the land.

The Marwanids are quickly dog-piled.  Nearby Doux Leontios of the Byzantine Empire declares for the Sheikhdom of Mesopotamia, and King Smbat of Hayastan comes in and takes more lands to his south.  For our part, we sieged down Tao, defeated his the Emir's army, and then won the day.  Rather easy war.  We even stole an artifact while raiding his castle - nothing too noteworthy, but after selling all of ours off it's a good start for getting a new collection going.




Towards the end of the war, my half-brother Pharen comes of age.  Rather jealous of that Stewardship score - wish Sahak had it - but I make him my Steward and kick out the old unlanded guy who was taking the spot before. 

After Tao is retaken (and kept by me - sorry Prince Grigor), we look for our next opportunity. 




To the east, Chieftain Yerneslu of Mugan has died, and his young son Tatra rules.  This would be a great time to attack - except the special soldiers were inherited.  Shame, often they are tied to a character but not in this case.  And I am still smarting from the last time I went up against Horse Archers.  I decide I need to be stronger or Tatra needs to be weaker before I think about attacking Mogun again.




To the northwest there is an interesting opportunity, however.  Prince Konstantin is 38 with a wife in her 20s and yet they still have no children.  He has the Chaste attribute, which does diminish the odds of siring kids.  As long as he has no children, if something were to happen to him then the Principality of Abhkazia would be inherited by his oldest sister, Sanatha.  Who isn't that much older than my heir, Prince Smbat.




But Prince Konstantin will not accept - yet.  The biggest thing holding him back is that we are trying to marry into inheriting his country (Patrilineal Marriage -100), but we have a number of things in our favor: he wants an alliance, his sister would be "marrying up", and that I've promised to splurge for a grand wedding. In the end the things that I can control are the fact my Court Grandeur sucks (-10 for him being unimpressed with my court), and that my Legitimacy sucks (-25).  I have to increase my Legitimacy.




Because it sucks right now.  It was fine when I was a Duke, but now that I'm a King i need to do more to raise it.  Currently I am at level 1 and my vassals think I need to be level 3 - my most powerful vassals think I should be level 4.  It's so bad that the general populace is grumbling and I'm losing Renown every month over it.  In addition, it's making my wars cost more prestige and reducing a lot of my diplomacy actions.  Like marrying my heir so that he can take over a duchy.

What is there to do about it?  Go on hunts.  That increases Legitimacy.  We're already good at hunting, right?




For this hunt I set my goal to befriend my half-brother Pharen.  I have Grigor locked up in marriage, now if I can win my half-brother over then that will be my two strongest vassals on my side.  At the start of the hunt my physician dares me to shoot a rabbit - I hit the shot and get a Lucky Rabbit's Paw trinket.




My marksmanship continues to impress as we come across the hart:  I shoot and hit it true.

From its hide we get an Illustrious Artifact: the Mighty Hart Hide.  I'm hanging this up on my wall straight away:




Monthly Prestige, Monthly Renown - what a great artifact.  It's so mighty that my vassals even give me a little more money just for being able to bask in the presence of it.  And it helps boost my Court Grandeur as well.  We're almost up to Level 4 there.

Just as important, I earn 20 Legitimacy for this hunt.  Well, it's not a lot but it will add up!

My vassals have gotten in on the hunting craze.  Next it is Prince Arshak who invites me out to a hunt in Lori.  On the way I run into a sooth-sayer, who gives me a very distressing fortune:




He tells me I will have bad fortune!  This gives me increased stress gain, wonderful.  Yet perhaps he really knows what he is talking about though, as a number of bad events start to befall us.  Just a few days later on the trek, my knight Vassak eats some strange fruit and becomes ill.  Then Prince Arshak fails to hit the beast and we come home empty handed.  Nevertheless, it is still 20 more Legitimacy.

By the end of the year, Plague is on our kingdom's doorstep:




Konstantin's Boils - no doubt named for the Duke (the game really is cruel with these plague names !)  Still the plague is outside our borders so there is no need to worry.  The disease would go on to kill 33 named characters in the game - including the sister of Duke Konstatin whom we were trying to marry our heir to!  Still, he has another sister.  Our chance there isn't over yet, but there is no more room for bad luck.




Prince Pharen was so impressed by my Hart shot that he wants to impress me with a hunt of his own.  Vassak falls sick on the way - well, we will miss the hunt if we wait for him, so I have my physician treat him as we continue along.  Once we arrive, Pharen announces he is not content with a hart - he wants to slay a wolf in close combat.  I am a bit shocked by this, but he is his own man now, surely he knows what he is doing.




Or not!  The wolf kills my half-brother.  I take some measure of vengence by taking the beast's head for my wall, but Pharen is dead.  I inherit his lands as he had no children of his own yet.

I am starting to think that sooth-sayer was right about my fortune!

[haphazard1]

Plague, wolves...people dying in all sorts of ways. Hopefully the poor luck foreseen by that seer will not bring danger to the king....

Your half-brother was your steward, right? So his suicide-by-wolf means you lose his nice stewardship score in that post. What options do you have to replace him?

What with prestige and court grandeur and legitimacy and all, being a king is apparently hard work. I assume there are positives as well, more than just having more territory under your control?

Thanks for this very entertaining update.

[aetryn]

Plague, wolves...people dying in all sorts of ways. Hopefully the poor luck foreseen by that seer will not bring danger to the king....

Your half-brother was your steward, right? So his suicide-by-wolf means you lose his nice stewardship score in that post. What options do you have to replace him?

What with prestige and court grandeur and legitimacy and all, being a king is apparently hard work. I assume there are positives as well, more than just having more territory under your control?

Thanks for this very entertaining update.

Structurally the extra level of vassals helps a lot when administering a lot of territory (you can now have Duke-level vassals under you that have Counts under them). Without that, you're pretty much unable to administer any kind of decent-sized domain. There are a bunch of laws that are Kingdom level. You get more Renown for being a King, which makes your House able to take more traits faster. All that stuff you have to do to keep up your stats means your court will be better, attract better doctors and huntmasters and knights and stuff. But mostly it's the structure. The same thing happens with the move up to Emperor - you ideally wants your dukes to have exactly 1 dukedom, you generally want to maintain at least 1 dukedom for yourself and ideally two, and that means you still have some Counts, so you run out of vassal slots as you get bigger and bigger.

If you don't care to grow your realm at all, you can just sit still at a particular rank, and that's probably fine at kingdom level. As a duke (or worse, a count)  you're a bit too weak and vulnerable to someone big coming along and deciding your land should belong to them. I could see it if you were a double-duke of two particularly amazing duchies within a pretty strong/stable kingdom - none of the other vassals can probably match you, and your liege will probably be afraid of you, and the realm as a whole not vulnerable to outsiders. There's probably some France or Germany starts that this could be achieved in pretty easily.  Of course, you need to have other goals in that case. CK3 is fun if you're either writing a narrative out of it and/or trying to do something. Otherwise it can just feel like watching random time go by and "things happen".

[pindicator]

King Sahak of Georgia, Part Four: 4 Weddings and a Funeral

With the fortune teller's ill omen coming to pass, the next years are rather mild.  Duke Konstantin falls ill from the sickness that bears his name, but he survives and continues on.  The lands are improved:  fields are started at Khachen.  Once completed they will boost income by 0.5 gold/month.  It doesn't sound like a lot but fields are one of the best economic buildings in the game.

In December 894, Prince Grigor comes to pay homage at our court, and to see our oldest daughter.




Gadar has now come of age and is married to the Prince.

During the wedding, another betrothal is made:  Sahak's second daughter, Leyli, has a match found for her:




With this marriage an alliance to Prince Smbat of Hayastan will mean our borders are largely secure.  (It also will mean expansion might not happen for some time, but I am not trying to blob out as fast as possible either.)  The alliance should also keep us relatively safe against other external threats.  I don't think Khazaria comes south of the Caucusses, and the various Arabian kingdoms in northern Iraq/Iran are small and fragmented.

As we roll into 895, the game then takes its focus on Sahak's third child: his heir, Prince Smbat.




This is one of the better event chains to get, and means many good events for Smbat are to come.  I don't think I've ever seen it before, but I've heard of the Fated Child events.  Of course we will nurture him and see where this goes.

Duke Konstantin must agree, because he will now agree to a wedding between his last remaining sister and my heir, Prince Smbat.




I have to promise him a grand wedding, which will cost me something like 400 gold to pull off, but the most important part is that the Duke has agreed and the two children are betrothed.  If Konstantin can just go to his grave without producing an heir of his own then the children of Smbat and Lamara will inherit a combined kingdom with no blood shed over it at all.

From there, the good events start to roll in for the prince:







Herbalist gives +2 Learning, +2 Intrigue, and a health boost of 0.5.  We also hit the 75% roll for Shrewd, which gives +2 to all character stats.

In 896 a foreign Hastaluder arrives, called by the reputation of Prince Smbat to train him.  (My son has a bigger reputation than me??)  This all culminates with Smbat fulfilling his promise and earning the "Tool of Fait" reward.




He earns 13 more stat points and gets monthly bonuses for the entirety of his life.  In addition his Prowess will never diminish with age.  What an amazing event chain.  I'd rather like to start playing as him now!

We decide to celebrate with an invasion of Mogun.  Now with our new allies we will have more than double their forces.  But even more, fate is on our side!




Also, smarter strategy.  This time we wait for the horsement to siege our forts at Khachen, and only then attack them, getting the defensive bonus of the fortifications as further bonus for our armies.

In June of 898 the Mogun horselords are defeated.




To commemorate the war, King Sahak has a new weapon commissioned by a masterwork weaponsmith traveling through the realm.  It cost a lot, 171 gold, but it was well worth the price:




King Sahak's mace has rather amazing stats:  +11 Prowess and Knight Efficiency of +14% are both monstrous.  Pursuit Efficiency means we will kill more units in the phase of combat where the enemy is routed and trying to retreat.  One of the better weapons I have ever had in this game.

And yet, King Sahak cannot help but feel like something is missing.  The feeling of something missing grows and begins to gnaw away at him.




Is it the thought of being so quickly surpassed by his only son?  Or does he have no further goals with alliances on all sides and all his father's failings avenged?  Or is it a foreboding feeling of something worse to come - that life has been just a bit too good lately?  The fortune teller's words hang over him.

In 899 the queen is pregnant again.  She is a bit old, at 40, but a second son would help secure the succession.  Except when the day came, we never got to see what was in store for that child:




The king does not take this well.  He suffers another mental break, and take the Improvident trait to get us through this tough time.  150 gold is donated to charity.  It helps, a little, but his stress is still high.  He still has Prince Smbat.  As long as he has his heir, then we will get through this.




There is no time to grieve, the loss of the queen has hurt the ruler and our domain limit has dropped among other things.  So we quickly find a suitable queen - Judjuna Bagrationi, first cousin to Prince Smbat of Hayastan.




She is set to help manage the domain.  With her stats so concentrated into Stewardship we get more out of 50% of domain than we do 20% out of everything.  This also brings King Sahak back up to 6 domain limit so that we don't have to give away another holding.

There's a bit of a risk of her giving a son, but she is rather older.  The marriage also gives a load of prestige for marrying into the family of King Smbat.

The rushed wedding was necessary because a bigger wedding is about to come off:  our heir's betrothed is about to come of age, and we need to prepare for the Grand Wedding.  In game terms, I need to stop spending gold!




I didn't mess with the guest list any, but it's all my vassals and all the heads of nearby nations.  And a couple from farther away!  There's Khan Shabaz from Oghuz il, across the Caspian Sea.  Amir-e Amiran Tahir Muhammadzde of Khorasan - last I had looked out at the map I didn't even notice Khorasan was formed, so he must be a new ruler.  I suspect those two traveled the farthest.  Of course there's the father of the bride, Prince Konstantin.  And the neighboring rulers of Emir Abu-Haf of the Marwanid Emirate and Prince Smbat of Hayastan.  And several others I did not recall or count.

The invitations go out early in January, but it isn't until August that everybody has arrive and the wedding can begin.

The proceedings have an ominous start as rain clouds threaten to descend on the whole affair, but they pass without dampening the crowd or Sahak's spirits.  Even Smbat tripping and falling on his face as he first approaches his bride-to-be is quickly glossed over.  Sahak is positively beaming through it all, a rare turn of events and stress release for him:




Amusingly the father of the bride is not nearly as excited.  Prince Konstantin just smiles politely, either put off by Sahak's constant beaming or perhaps regretting that this marriage could be the end of an independent Abkhazia.

Vows are exchanged and the crowd cheers.




Next was the feast.  As the host, Sahak knew he should be out mingling with everyone, but he kept finding himself cornered by one guest or another.  First it was his Steward, who could just not wait to share some his ideas for the governing of the realm.  And then it was Emir Abu-Haf, but for completely different reasons: the Emir was so much fun that Sahak couldn't pull himself away and the two fast became friends.  A number of other social events to, things that I could choose either for prestige or opinion bonuses among various individuals.  In the end all rather inconsequential, except I did forge a friendship with the Amir-e Amiran of Khorasan, and a sharp exchange with the mother of the bride helped me increase my Intrigue and her Diplomacy stats.




After the guests had departed and Smbat and his new wife were off building their new household, Sahak finally had the moment he needed to grieve the death of his first wife.  A funeral was planned and her body inlaid at the temple at Nukhpata, near the old capital at Aran where Sahak and Gregoria had first lived before he took the throne.




There was a rather shameful display by his new wife, loudly wailing and shedding fake tears at the funeral of the woman she had supplanted.  But after that bit of nonsense had been done with the rest of the event was a solemn and pious affair.  Lots of Renown, Legitimacy, and Piety boosts for our king for holding a royal funeral.

The renown gained from the grand wedding and the funeral helped us unlock our 2nd Dynastic Legacy, Faithful Magistrates:

[haphazard1]

Events -- hunts, feasts, weddings, funerals, pilgrimages -- seem to play a large role in the game. How random are they? Some seem fairly controllable by the player -- sponsoring a hunt or whatever -- but others seem more like things that happen to you.

Thanks for the update.